Almost by definition, the North Pole is not thought of as a global
hot spot.
It's an area typically only recognized come holiday time.
But
as the polar ice melts, the Arctic is becoming a nexus of geopolitical
tensions, over subjects as diverse as penguins and Ukraine.
The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, a Pentagon division that
provides maps to the spy community, is closely monitoring the
situation.
New transportation routes and energy reserves are rising to
the surface.

And because all the commotion has economic and not just military
ramifications, NGA Director Robert Cardillo sees the Arctic as a place
that could bring his agency out into the open.
Again.
Since taking office last fall, the lifelong intelligence analyst has garnered attention for pulling the curtain off certain geospatial data, such as maps of the Ebola spread.
"To me, I think the Arctic is a wonderful place where we should be
thinking about our next piece of open code," Cardillo said in a recent
interview with Nextgov. "
A great deal of what’s known about the
Arctic is unclassified. We don’t have a rich history of classified
intelligence collection in the Arctic, because -- guess what? -- it
wasn’t a priority.

Now it is.
President Barack Obama in a May 2013 Arctic National Strategy outlined
"strategic priorities" for the Arctic region, that call for, among
other things, a greater awareness of activity in the region as well
as charts and scientific research to better understand the
landscape.
That would include NGA’s geospatial intelligence -- insights
derived from pairing satellite imagery with historical data sets.
"I’m not going to dive into the, ‘Why is the Arctic warmer than it
used to be?' but I know it is," Cardillo said. "And I know there’s less
ice up there now, and I know there’s more ship traffic now. I know
there’s more potential for natural resource exploitation then there ever
has been before. Those facts have driven state actions. Russia, as one
of the claimants for the resources and maritime navigation and control,
etc., has made decisions based upon those changing facts. Some of those
decisions are military based."

The Arctic is now a frozen conflict

Some observers compare the situation up North to the 1980s Cold War, no pun intended.
"Although Moscow isn’t threatening the West with anything near the
number of warplanes deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War,
its air sorties around Norway have increased dramatically each year
since 2007," Jeff Stein wrote in Newsweek last
month.
Late last year, "military construction crews began refurbishing a
string of Cold War-era bases on islands in the Arctic."
The United States seems to be preparing for more aggression from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Last year, the Army’s Northern Warfare Training Center in Black
Rapids trained 1,300 personnel to maneuver on the frozen ground, Stars and Stripes reported last week.

Aside from the potential for tactical clashes, there are
disagreements pitting U.S. industrial operators, who are pursuing the
Arctic's fossil fuels and new shipping waterways, against U.S.
environmentalists, who worry about the ecological risks of drilling.
"Underneath all of that is an economic decision," said Cardillo,
speaking from inside NGA’s Springfield, Virginia-based headquarters,
which is shaped like a giant eyeball lens.
It's estimated the Arctic
region holds 13 percent of the world’s oil reserves and 30 percent of
its natural gas.
Venues for hosting public geospatial intelligence on the Arctic might
include Apple's app store, the code-sharing site GitHub and NGA.mil,
where interactive viewing tools are powered by Esri mapping software.
The site currently serves up unclassified data sets to aid Ebola relief
efforts.
NGA’s first app, Anti-Shipping Activity Messages, or ASAM, details
incidents of hijacking on the high seas all over the world.
The
underlying code for the app, which was released last fall, also is
available on GitHub.
"We’re all in on GitHub. We’re very proud of our page,"
Cardillo said.
"Not that we want to introduce piracy into the Arctic --
but there’s a certain appetite for general situational awareness that I
would think we could and should play."

While NGA has unique access to panoramas of Russian military
construction up north, it remains to be seen whether site locations
would be made public.
"I’m encouraging our team to create conditions and the context so
that our policymakers and decision-makers can have a better footing to
think about employment of resources, deployment of diplomatic
engagement, potentially, security-related actions, whether it’s just to
protect or it’s to project, in some cases we project force throughout
the world to ensure safety of navigation, for example," Cardillo said.

The Arctic is where allies Canada, the United States, Greenland, Iceland and Norway come in closest proximity to Russia, Military and Aerospace Electronics pointed out earlier this month, in describing several international efforts underway to surveil the region.

Among the cutting-edge explorations is the Arctic Earth Observation and Surveillance Technologies program,
run by the Research Council of Norway. The Norwegians are trying out
new satellite and drone surveillance equipment to better understand
environmental changes at the pole.
"As the ice retreats, new fishing zones are opening up, and -- most
importantly -- so are shipping routes that trim thousands of miles off
voyages, saving enormous amounts of time and money" for transporting all
kinds of resources, Foreign Policy In Focus researcher Conn Hallinan said
this past November.
Moscow and Beijing have negotiated a $400 billion
oil and gas deal, which China expects will generate Arctic energy
development profits and Moscow anticipates will relieve the pangs of
Western sanctions over Ukraine fighting.

Yes, China and Ukraine have a stake in the land grab, even if they aren't visible on an Arctic map.
Cardillo said he likes to show people polar projection maps “because
it’s very disconcerting, it destabilizes your mind. When you look at the
North Pole at the center of a projection, it looks very unfamiliar,” he
said.

At first, gazers say, “’Wait a minute, the United States isn't that
tiny. It doesn’t sit on the edge on the Earth like that. We’re at the
center of the world.' You get those reactions,” Cardillo said. But they
also “clearly see Alaska and Canada and Norway and Russia -- what I
like about it is the way it changes your thinking about it."